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That would also bring some serious doubts as to effectiveness. A-Rod has been in a steady downward spiral as a hitter since 2009. Sure didn't help him reach new heights in his mid 30's like Barry Bonds.

Further confirmation for me at least that Bonds' success cannot be fully explained, or even mostly explained, by steroids. I'll grant partially explained. Bonds had an aging pattern that was most unusual period, but also unusual among confirmed steroid users.

That would also bring some serious doubts as to effectiveness. A-Rod has been in a steady downward spiral as a hitter since 2009. Sure didn't help him reach new heights in his mid 30's like Barry Bonds.

Well we don't know what either of them were taking, so it's sorta hard to make an overall assessment of PED efficacy isn't it?

The real point to the exercise is that MLB is revealing how it's going to present its case: "Here's proof that he used in 2009, so that's 50 games; here's proof he used again in 2010, that's 100 more games; here's proof he used yet again in 2011 AND 2012, so that means he's banned for life."

His motivation is so unclear.
He already had the mega contract.
He was already had a career worthy of the Hall of Fame (like the writer's punishment is a deterrence at all) and nothing forced him to admit the use in 2001-2003.
The home run/runs/rbi records would have been cool achievements and the HR record would have brought him $30 million more.
Seems like its mostly he felt bad or at least not right without the extra hormones.

That would also bring some serious doubts as to effectiveness. A-Rod has been in a steady downward spiral as a hitter since 2009. Sure didn't help him reach new heights in his mid 30's like Barry Bonds.

Further confirmation for me at least that Bonds' success cannot be fully explained, or even mostly explained, by steroids. I'll grant partially explained. Bonds had an aging pattern that was most unusual period, but also unusual among confirmed steroid users.

You're looking for rationality where there is none to be found. Those who reach the heights of professional sports have a compulsion to competition that would be unhealthy in any other context. They want to win every game, every at-bat, every pitch, every kind of contest that comes with the game. Consider Barry Bonds, quoted in a recent thread as saying, "I don't trust baseball. I haven't played baseball since college. I work for a living." So here's a guy who doesn't care for the environment of baseball. Wasn't really one of those clubhouse guys who just loves to hang-out with other ballplayers. Was a multi-millionaire, with absolutely no need to work again, let alone play baseball. But he kept playing even as his body was falling apart, and probably would have continued playing into his 40s if they'd given him a contract.

Despite the common complaint from the sportswriters, these guys don't play for the big contract. I mean, sure, if there's money to be had they want it. But that's just part of the larger pattern: winning, at almost anything, at any cost.

Jim Bouton said in Ball Four that if you gave him a pill that guaranteed him 20 wins but took 5 years off his life, he'd take it. We're not really dealing with rational motivations here.

Jim Bouton said in Ball Four that if you gave him a pill that guaranteed him 20 wins but took 5 years off his life, he'd take it. We're not really dealing with rational motivations here.

It isn't just Bouton (and pitchers in general). Or athletes. Or warriors in the military. It can be coal-miners and cross-country truckers. Why do women have babies, or abortions, when they simply could have not had sex at all?

You're looking for rationality where there is none to be found. Those who reach the heights of professional sports have a compulsion to competition that would be unhealthy in any other context. They want to win every game, every at-bat, every pitch, every kind of contest that comes with the game. Consider Barry Bonds, quoted in a recent thread as saying, "I don't trust baseball. I haven't played baseball since college. I work for a living." So here's a guy who doesn't care for the environment of baseball. Wasn't really one of those clubhouse guys who just loves to hang-out with other ballplayers. Was a multi-millionaire, with absolutely no need to work again, let alone play baseball. But he kept playing even as his body was falling apart, and probably would have continued playing into his 40s if they'd given him a contract.

I think you're misinterpreting the quote. Bonds is not saying that he does not like playing baseball. He's highlighting the fact that his relationship to his employer is more complicated than "just playing a game."

His motivation is so unclear.
He already had the mega contract.
He was already had a career worthy of the Hall of Fame (like the writer's punishment is a deterrence at all) and nothing forced him to admit the use in 2001-2003.
The home run/runs/rbi records would have been cool achievements and the HR record would have brought him $30 million more.
Seems like it's mostly he felt bad or at least not right without the extra hormones.

Jim Bouton said in Ball Four that if you gave him a pill that guaranteed him 20 wins but took 5 years off his life, he'd take it.

Steve Stone has said he knew he was ruining his arm in his Cy Young season and that he'd make that trade again. (Of course he's been broadcasting for like 30 years so he probably said the exact opposite at some point.)

On testing -- does it prove testing is ineffective? Of course not. It shows that testing is not perfect, that there are effective ways to mask or ARod's usage has been at such a low-level that it washes out quickly (and maybe is ineffective). We also don't know if ARod has been one of the random testing lottery losers or not. It is true that the stuff that Bosch was supposedly doling out seemed like pretty standard stuff.

From a political standpoint it doesn't really matter. Show that enforcement and penalty aren't sufficient and the response is stricter/more invasive enforcement and harsher penalties. MLB will probably be asking for full Olympic-type year-round random testing for all, more blood testing and at least a 1-year ban for first offense. The media (and Congress if they want to stick their nose in again) will be right there supporting MLB.

I've been following cycling since 1990, way before Armstrong. Even at that point - as we know now - PED usage was widespread, but not a single fan or journalist or official had a clue. Testing was thought to be 90% water-proof; ocassionally, somebody got caught, and this reinforced the idea that it worked, and that the heroes were real.

Even when cycling had its Balco moment, most fans assumed it was only the cycling equivalent of Bonds, McGwire and Sosa that were using, not Lance Armstrong. It took almost twenty years for the truth to come out: that nearly everybody was using, and that tests caught at most 5% of the offenders.

An interesting detail (that you don't hear about too often): in retrospect, the only reliable indicator wasn't the gossip, but the statistics. Average Tour de France speeds increased by an ungodly amount in the 90s, after slowly trending upwards for decades. At some point, the top-20 fastest climbs in Mont Ventoux history were held by admitted EPO-users - and Lance Armstrong and Michael Boogaard, who were still vehemently denying any involvement with PEDs. Statistics told us they had to be lying, but it took them 3 more years to 'fess up.

Anyway, this headline is giving me deja-vus. At this point, I won't be suprised if Bagwell, Piazza et al. turn out to be juicers after all, even if it may seem like a baseless accusation in 2013. It's not about the back acne or the muscles, it's about the unreal jump in slugging percentages.

Anyway, this headline is giving me deja-vus. At this point, I won't be suprised if Bagwell, Piazza et al. turn out to be juicers after all, even if it may seem like a baseless accusation in 2013. It's not about the back acne or the muscles, it's about the unreal jump in slugging percentages.

Like Alex Sanchez's? The problem with this is that, unlike cycling or track, there are plenty of attributes needed to play baseball well that steroids just can't significantly affect. There's no way to look at the numbers and decipher who used, like you can in cycling. The comparison doesn't work.

To echo #30, maybe PEDs/PED usage patterns that evade the testing program just aren't that good. If that's the case, the testing program is accomplishing a large part of it's goal, evening if it's not catching all PED users.

It's not about the back acne or the muscles, it's about the unreal jump in slugging percentages.

Either testing or bat standards or ball construction has done something to bring ISO down over the last few years approaching levels not seen since 1992 (excepting the year of the homer 1987); it's not like the fences are being moved out everywhere.

For single team seasons, From 1973 to 2013, All Teams in Major Leagues, For any choice in Season Totals, sorted by greatest Isolated Slugging % for this split

But then if you looked at ski jumping stats, you'd think they'd all gone PEDs-crazy -- which maybe they did but it was just a change in technique.

The approach of hitters changed dramatically -- in a fairly short period of time. But as we've shown a couple of times, performance "on contact" has been pretty much constant from 1994-2013. Hitters shifted to a patient, fly-ball, power for K approach. What's changed in that time is the K-rate.

Obviously it's possible that shift in hitting philosophy was due to a shift in strength -- i.e. now that they were all roided up power hitters, they could all be successful with that approach. But maybe, like ski jumping or like Babe Ruth, it happened very quickly because it was an obviously superior approach once people saw it.

It's not clear we have the stats to even start teasing that out. Things like GB/FB and HR/FB only go back to 1988 (on b-r, maybe there are more years elsewhere). Further confusing the picture is that it's generally been true that good hitters start to trade power for K/BA as they age making comparisons of players pre- and post-94 a bit more challenging.

We are also still distracted by flukes. Bonds had HR/FB% of 20% and 19% in 1999 and 2000. He went bonkers in 2001 at 30% ... but then was back at 21% in 2002 and all told from 37-42 he was at 20%. That's better than what he did when he was younger (about 17% in his early 30s) but then we don't know what Aaron or Ruth did in their older years.

We can look at AB/HR and we see that from 37-39 that Aaron led the league and was career average at 40 before falling off. Bonds led the league from 35-39 but then he had also led the league at 27, 28 and 31.

We have GB/FB for almost all of McGwire's career. His GB/FB ratio is just .4, a GO/AO ratio of .55 (Aaron .84). He led in HR/AB at 23, 25, 28, 31, 32, 34, 35. I think he had only 4 qualifying seasons when he did not lead the league in HR/AB. Of course he may have been using PEDs in 87 for all we know.

But Mac seems perfectly emblematic of the shift. From 1987-1993, he K'd in 18.5% of his PAs, 60% in-play, HR/FB of 16%, 14 AB/HR. From 1994-2000, the K-rate bumped up to 22% (nearly 24% in 1994, it's a pretty clear break). The walk rate also jumped 6% (some of that is intentional, although he led the league only once). Only 47% in-play, HR/FB of 28%, 8.2 AB/HR, GB/FB even lower.

The shift in HR/FB certainly looks absurd. But it was part of a league-wide shift. The 93 AL had 37 AB/HR, 6.8% HR/FB; the 94 AL had 31 AB/HR and 8.2% HR/FB. In the AL at least, those numbers stayed pretty consistent from 94 to 06 -- HR/AB in the 30-32 range, HR/FB% from about 7.7 to 8.2. 2007-11 saw K-rates going up so HR/AB and HR/FB rates down a bit (except 2009). But 2012 saw a big jump in Ks but also bad to 31 HR/AB and I think a record 8.7% HR/FB. This year, with a somewhat higher K-rate, it's at 33 and 8.1%.

That 2013 change is largely due to the Royals. This year they have a AB/HR of 52 on 5.2% HR/FB; last year (still worst) they were 43 and 6.2.

Getting back to the cycling thing ... it's not like doping is at all new. I've met one old pro cyclist, rode in the 70s and 80s and he talks about all the amps and other things. Little needle packs sewn into the shorts, give yourself a slap in the ass for a little extra energy. I'm not sure those faster Ventoux times are the result of doping -- if everybody was doping 40 years ago and 20 years ago and 10 years ago then it's always a question of "did the doping get better or did the other training/equipment get better or were the athletes 'naturally' better or what combination thereof"?

According to BikeRadar, Armstrong 99 was the first rider to use an all-carbon frame(s) from start to finish. Min allowable bike weight now is 6.8 kg -- they weighed the bikes after one stage this year suspecting riders were shaving below this -- while BikeRadar claims Armstrong's 1999 fram was 8.6 kg. They say 98 was the last year for a frame with no carbon, although that bike reportedly weighed 1 pound less than Armstrong's 99 model. The last steel bike was 94 although that reportedly was just 1 pound more than Armstrong's 99.

Anyway, they don't report the weights of all the bikes but they have Armstrong at 19 pounds in 99 but 16 pounds in 03 and the min allowed is 15 pounds. A 3 to 4-pound difference up Ventoux would be substantial. I don't know enough about bicycle history to know if there was ever a period where bike technology improved that rapidly (20% reduction in weight, likely substantial improvement in aerodynamics -- carbon easier to shape).

Similarly in baseball -- roids, greater emphasis on strength/fitness, Coors, maple bats, thin handles, rake-and-take, possible tinkering with the ball. There's just too much going on at one time, none of it besides Coors easily measured, to rely on the statistical record.

Historically of course we've seen other massive shifts. From crazy scoring in the late 1800s to the deadball era to Babe Ruth, to the insane AL of the 30s but the somewhat more sane NL of the 30s (ball-related supposedly), the massive walk-oriented offense of the 50s followed by deadball II of the 60s followed by a heavy emphasis on speed (and astroturf) followed by the mehball of the 80s (somewhat injury-related) followed by sillyball now followed by sillyball with even more Ks.

I played around with this in another thread but if you take Ruth and double his K-rate while keeping his on-contact hitting, you basically get Jim Thome.

What the statistics do tell us is that (a) there was a big shift in how offense was produced in 93-94 but (b) other than K rate, that's been fairly constant for the last 20 years. If you give Williams the same K-rate as Bonds (i.e. turn ABs into Ks), you end up around 320/455/589 vs Bonds 290/444/607. (That's probably a bit unfair to Ted as the shift in league K-rates between him and Bonds was probably closer to 50% while I'm shifting his K-rate by about 70% ... but since my point is more that Bonds/Thome are just earlier guys with higher K-rates it's OK with me if Williams is ranked even higher.)

Through age 36, Reggie hit 364/687 on-contact; Sosa hit 371/727. Similar K-rates so overall 272/363/512 vs 274/345/537. Is that a big enough statistical discontinuity or just incremental improvement in power hitting over time? Certainly relative to league, Sosa's numbers must look more normal.

The first step is to explain the Ks. Sticking with the AL, in 92 they had a 5.4 K/9; in 93 it was 5.8; in 94-95 it was 6.1. In 2001 it was 6.4; 6.4 in 2006; 6.9 in 2011; 7.4 in 2012; 7.6 in 2013. To blame sillyball on roids, to credit the decline to testing, one first has to establish a link between roids and Ks. Given that pre-sillyball the K-rte was 5.4 and post-sillyball it's 7.4, it's challenging to argue that both of those states are 'natural'. If roids were mostly not in the game pre-94 and are mostly out of the game now then clearly we've seen other substantial shifts in offensive production besides just roids.

Either testing or bat standards or ball construction has done something to bring ISO down over the last few years approaching levels not seen since 1992 (excepting the year of the homer 1987); it's not like the fences are being moved out everywhere.

Strikeouts. I'm gonna keep pulling out this table until folks commit it to memory. :-) From Ron_J2:

I though I'd check year by year in case Walt's hypothesis (that it's the Ks) is kind of a case of (purely accidental -- Walt's clearly working from the author's premise) multiple endpoint.

Went back to 1988. Have only finished the AL -- my preference for the same reason Walt gave. Also eliminated pitcher's hitting.

Standard deviation is .004 for BABIP and BAOC, .006 ISOC and 1.4 for HRR

There is possibly a slight downward trend in ISOC and BABIP but generally batters are hitting the ball just as hard as ever. They are striking out much more the last few years. (Note, Ron went to the trouble of putting sac flies back in, I suspect bobm didn't ... which is fine, just pointing out a possible difference.)

Let's take that average BAOC and ISOC. For a guy with 550 AB and 130 K that works out to that's an overall 249/396 (147 ISO); drop his Ks to 110 and it's 261/415 (154 ISO).

So, in bobm's table, only the silliest sillyball years of 1999-2001 stand out (among the 1994-2013 years) once you adjust for K-rate.

Now, what explains the shift in K-rates, especially the huge jump of the last 2-3 seasons? I don't see any particular reasons to think that has to do with testing, ball construction or bat testing -- we can construct reasonable arguments to link them (i.e. weaker batters have to swing more 'wildly' to generate the same power) but they're not obviously directly linked. While we may have gone back to the scoring levels of the late 80s - early 90s we certainly have not gone back to that style of offensive production. If the sillyball era was "unnatural" then the current era is "climate change gone wild."

While we may have gone back to the scoring levels of the late 80s - early 90s we certainly have not gone back to that style of offensive production.

One element is that the ratio of singles per plate appearance has been falling steadily since 1973, probably faster than the increase in HR/PA. Maybe this is due to batters' apparent increased acceptance of striking out as a byproduct of the pursuit of XBH, rather than adjust their approach and settle for a single, e.g., with two strikes.

Also, fewer singles means less reason to attempt to steal second base, since an XBH will score the runner from first base and a walk won't score the runner from second base.

I'm not sure those faster Ventoux times are the result of doping -- if everybody was doping 40 years ago and 20 years ago and 10 years ago then it's always a question of "did the doping get better or did the other training/equipment get better or were the athletes 'naturally' better or what combination thereof"?

You should read Tyler Hamilton's book. The size of the effects people were seeing in cycling were just out of the question for changes in equipment or training. If you take someone with a 40% hematocrit and dope them up to 50% (the limit for racing in the days before EPO testing), they're putting out something like 20% more power at their peak. Bjarne Riis is supposed to have competed a 60% hematocrit.

Hamilton describes his feeling of amazement watching other riders performing superhuman feats his first few years as a professional, when he was on top teams and getting top level coaching. It wasn't a question of training or techniques.

I no longer keep up with tennis, but it was my impression that professional tennis players were tested often and rigorously. From some recent opinion pieces, though, it seems that although players can be subjected to a good bit of testing, the system has been lax.

The approach of hitters changed dramatically -- in a fairly short period of time. But as we've shown a couple of times, performance "on contact" has been pretty much constant from 1994-2013. Hitters shifted to a patient, fly-ball, power for K approach. What's changed in that time is the K-rate.

One potentially big change I've noticed in the last year or two is that more hitters have either dropped a pinky (bat handle resting in bottom palm) or gone to a partial overlap grip (top hand pinky over bottom hand) or both. That'll get you more power (more bat to swing) with less bat control.
It's weird; I thought those grips went out with Ernie Lombardi, but I feel like at least one or two guys on every team now has the hands lower on the bat using one of these techniques.

Which is interesting because Ernie Lombardi had outstanding bat control. He'd strike out 15 times a year; many contemporary sources cite him as a terrifying line-drive hitter, but he only hit 10-15 home runs a year.

Anyway, all you'd have to do is give pitchers back the inside corner and that would put an end to that practice.

Yeah, my impression was that there was a lot of doping in cycling, and I figured that meant the guy who won the Tour de France a million times was probably doing it too.

It's amazing though. I work with several guys who were/are serious competitive cyclists. They would speculate about Armstrong and come up with all kinds of rationalizations to explain his extraordinary performances. So when I said it could all be explained by his doping and not to believe a word he said, they would get all indignant. The reasons were his sterling character, his unique training regimen, his iron will. So when the truth came out, they were all crestfallen and disillusioned, and I'm looking at them and just shaking my head. How many times does the sporting public have to be lied to, deceived and cheated before they get it that these guys are just self-centered overachiever types who will do anything and say anything legal or extralegal to get a leg up on the competition.

It was on his 5th or 6th tour win, when this Italian rider I think decided to go for the lead and try to break away. this guy had said for years that Armstrong was doping. So Armstrong and his crew catch up to him and basically ride him off the front. They either cycle to fast for him to keep up or whatever, and you can see Armstrong yelling at him to go back to the peloton. WHich he eventually did.

SO what happens at the end of the race? Did anyone back up this guy? No every man on the tour backed up Lance. Now think about that....

Here's a guy who beats your ass over and over again and someone challenges his integrity, and you...what? you back up Lance? The guy who beats you?

EDIT: The guys name was Fillipo Simeoni. The other tour riders actually spat on him for making a breakaway. What up with that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filippo_Simeoni

It would be like if Canseco or McGuire or whomever was accused of doping and everyone in MLB would defend him. Hell you had Bonds own teammates who hated him so much that even they wouldnt back him. Or Tiger Woods or anyone in any sport...Why would you defend the one guy who wins every year?

Just think about that. Why wouldnt you back up the Italian guy just to get in Lance's head? Just to get whatever advantage you could. The whole tour just back up Lance. Think about that.